WBC president to speak with Golovkin and Canelo’s management on conference call

By Dan Ambrose: WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman will be holding a conference call with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions and Gennady Golovkin’s promoters at K2 Promotions on Friday to discuss a fight between Canelo and Golovkin. Sulaiman gave Canelo 15 days previously to start negotiations with Canelo otherwise he would strip him of his title, but he’s not playing it strict with him for some reason.

Sulaiman is talking about letting Canelo get in a voluntary defense of his WBC middleweight title next May, and then a possible fight between him and Golovkin taking place next year in September. Canelo would be fighting on both of the Mexican holidays in 2016.

“We are in communication with Golden Boy and K2 representatives of both fighters, but all goes well underway,” Sulaiman said to ESPN Deportes. “The parties understand what the commitments and guidelines are, and I’m confident he will make an agreement that will be released soon. I feel that everything is on track and in accordance with regulations,” Sulaiman said.

Sulaiman isn’t going to push a specific date or time limit for the negotiations. It’s too bad because without the WBC stepping in to make sure that the negotiations are started and conducted in a timely fashion, then this could be dragged out for ages. The other sanctioning bodies have timelines for when the negotiations are supposed to be completed. If they don’t get completed by such and such date, then there’s a purse bid.

“We are not policeman, not stiffness is being sought,” Sulaiman said about the WBC not giving Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions a specific date for the negotiations to be completed. “They’re talking. I’m a witness. Tomorrow we will have a conference call to know the status.”
I hope that Golden Boy and K2 Promotions actually speak with each other during the conference call. It would be disappointing if it’s just the WBC president speaking with K2 Promotions without Canelo’s promoters being on the line.

It’s unclear why Sulaiman and the WBC is going to allow the 25-year-old Canelo get a voluntary defense in of his WBC middleweight title, because Golovkin was supposed to have been given a step aside fee for the Canelo vs. Miguel Cotto fight to take place last month.

With Sulaiman allowing Canelo to have a voluntary defense take place in May of next year, it’s going to get interesting if he and Golden Boy Promotions drag their feet about a fight against Golovkin in September of 2016. If it plays out like that will the WBC step in to exert control over the situation by quickly stripping Canelo of the WBC title or will they allow him to have more voluntary defenses to stretch the Golovkin fight out into the future? It could be played out in any number of ways. I wouldn’t be surprised if Canelo vacates the WBC title rather than defending it against Golovkin. In other words, the WBC title would be a trinket or a prop that he uses for his next fight in May of next year, and then disposed of when Canelo finally has his back against the wall and is being forced to defend it against Golovkin.

If the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight does take place will the WBC stand back helplessly and allow Canelo and Golden Boy to call the shots by demanding a catch-weight handicap of 155lbs for Golovkin to have to agree to in order to get a crack at the WBC or title or will the WBC tell Canelo and Golden Boy that they can’t force catch-weight handicaps on mandatory challengers? We’re going to see.

It was my understanding that Golovkin was supposed to be getting a title shot next against the winner of the Cotto vs. Canelo fight. But it looks like Sulaiman is going to let Canelo take a voluntary instead. I guess Sulaiman can justify letting Canelo take the voluntary because he’s the new WBC middleweight champion and not the old one.

Cotto had already used up two of his voluntary defenses with fights against Daniel Geale and Canelo. If Cotto had kept his WBC title, he would have had to fight Golovkin next unless he gave him a step aside payment. Since Golovkin didn’t get the step aside payment for the Cotto-Canelo fight, I guess he wouldn’t have been up for stepping aside a second time.